The most poignant part of last night's talk at the Senior Center came afterwards. One very sweet older lady asked me during Q&A if I would continue Dusty Diary. "I read you every day," she said. My heart was touched, and I've truly been a slaggard at maintaining this blog during vegetable-gardening planting season. That was lazy and rather irresponsible of me. The lady's kind words, and some nods in the audience, have given me resolve to return to and do a responsible job of maintaining this blog.Last night's talk at the Senior center was fun. About 30 folks attended. We blasted off with a game of Ypsi Jeopardy, which folks enjoyed. I had set up chairs into 2 teams and asked each team to pick a team name. One picked the Towers, the other the Braves. And we were off, with a game set up on an old slide-projector screen. James kept score, sort of.
Afterwards James gave a talk on Oscar Lawrence, a man possibly linked with the Dan Corey murder. I did not vet this talk. The talk was based on secondary source material. Primary source material available at the Archives that includes census records, grave records, genealogical records, and a WWI draft registration card collectively present a factually different portrait of this man--and of his character. Afterwards I gave a talk on Depression-era social worker Inez Graves. There was a raffle for two of my books and two of James's books--his book comes out in late July and will be available at Salt City, Mix, and Amazon.
I noted several aspects of my presentation skills that need improvement. I need to relax more, monitor the pace of my speech, and I was wearing heels that made a distracting sound on the floor. Also, I later realized I'd talked about Inez before at a former talk, and there might have been at least one of the same audience members--think I recognized one--at that former talk. Not too bright. An oversight. Mistakes are an opportunity for me to learn and get better.
As folks drifted in my husband manned the Victrola, changing needles and rewinding as necessary. The whispery, tinny music created a nostalgic atmosphere. This beautiful machine was recently renovated by an Ypsilanti artist. It's now at the house of a fellow Ypsilantian "Victrolian" [term coined by husband] who lent me a few of his 78s for the talk. Today's Courier contains a story about its renovation. So welcome back to DD, and hope to have the compliment of a visit tomorrow!
